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Permalink Reply by Bacon on June 3, 2011 at 13:31

Nice!

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Permalink Reply by George Higginbotham on June 3, 2011 at 13:49

Wow!, I think I'll go see that one!

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Permalink Reply by P.G. on June 3, 2011 at 14:12

Imagine if they made a film like that on Natural Gas drilling next?

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Permalink Reply by essay on June 3, 2011 at 14:53

zing~

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Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on June 4, 2011 at 3:21

PG, natural gas drilling is a minor scratch compared to the coal mining in the Appalachian Mountains and when completed leaves almost no impact.  Also you have all the contaminated ash after burning coal to handle. 

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Permalink Reply by P.G. on June 4, 2011 at 5:11

Yes but if it were left up to the green people to do some fact twisting, who knows what they might come up with...

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Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on June 4, 2011 at 3:14

AL, I watched a two hour program a few years ago on mountaintop removal.  It is really tragic how much damage these operations generate.

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Permalink Reply by Max on June 4, 2011 at 3:24

What's wrong with this picture?  We're removing entire mountains to haul away a coal seam that's less than .01% of the mountain.  If the coal producers had to put the mountain back, less the coal seam, they wouldn't make any money.  No profit, no mountain top removal.

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Permalink Reply by Carl W. Bird on June 9, 2011 at 9:18

The attack on the coal industry by the current administration is far more vicious than the attack on a mountain. What's more important? A view? A windfarm? Or is it the lives of people? Keeping people out of poverty? It seems that the entire state of West Virginia has a bullseye in its forehead. And it's not the coal companies that will suffer the most. It's the permanent loss of jobs and the people who lose them because the coal companies are forced to shut down mining operations. Pollution? Yes, it's a problem. It has always been a problem, but it can be dealt with, not by the jackbooted thugs of the EPA, but by reasonable people dedicated to the balance of usage of and preservation of our natural resources. The latter is called conservation.

 

The reality is that it is a battle of words and the ideas behind them: In this case, environmentalism versus conservation. In the 50's and 60's when I was growing up, conservation was the word and the idea. And it was good. But along came the 70's and conservation was replaced with environmentalism. And it was and it is terrible. Conservation at its root is to protect people by wise use of the earth. It puts people first. Environmentalism is, at its root, to protect the planet and everything in it but people at all costs. People are last.

 

Consider this: The most important things on the earth are human beings. God only created the earth because He wanted a place for them to live. So, it follows that if God had not created man, then neither would he have created the earth. Now that doesn't mean that man can just do as he pleases with the earth. God also made it clear that man is to be a good steward of the earth (his home), wisely using all the resources that God has furnished the earth with, while not making a mess of the place. Is this not conservation?

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Permalink Reply by P.G. on June 9, 2011 at 11:55

I see this as just a part of the fight over market share of the energy market...there is a large enough market for all forms of energy but rather than seeing anyone developing those markets, we see this sort of anti stuff...If it's not blasting coal, it will be fracking natural gas and so on and so on.....enough is enough...

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Permalink Reply by Max on June 10, 2011 at 6:12

Hey Mr. Bird, you left out the book of Revelations when you got up there with your stump speech about jackboots and the environment.

 

Consider this:  The most important things on this earth is "not" human beings.  If you would remember from Sunday School class, it was us who screwed up and got thrown out of the Garden because we were getting too big for our britches, (fig leafs).  Everything on this Earth depends on each other.  The plankton in the ocean may not be big on your list, but do away with it, and you'll see several billion human beings starve to death.  The human race has been nearly wiped out several times, at this time in history, there is only one of the many different humanoids species that survives today.  We're becoming a "virus" on this Earth, and someday soon, due to our own neglect, we will be faced with problems of overpopulation and not enough resources to support us.  If all the world's people lived like we do, we would need two more 'Earth's' for us to live on.  The last time I checked, this is the only one for miles around.  Conservation is just a buzz word to make people feel good about living the life style that's using up more resources than can be sustained.

 

Folks use the Bible all the time to justify the raping and pillaging of this Earth.  Defending the removal of an mountain with your argument is short sighted.  You can't remove a mountain without making a mess.  A BIG mess.  If you would care to do the research, you will find that 90% of the waterways in West Virginia are polluted from the coal industry.  You can't claim that from the NG industry because the impact of the physical area is contained to the recovery site.  

 

When a mountain is bull dozed, where do you think all the overburden ends up?  I'll tell you, in the valleys around that mountain.  Who lives in those valleys?  Everything from toad frogs to people.  Now, where do they have to go?  It ain't on the mountain next to the one thats being destroyed, it's too hazardous to live in that area, they can't drink the water, breath the air, or even drive on the roads without being run-over by rock haulers.  

 

As you said, "put people first".  Stop the mountain removal. 

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